Patouxai

We got up about 8:00AM and went and had breakfast, then back to the guest house and got a $6 room. A lot more basic, a fan, double bed, and the showers/toilets are shared, outside, and no hot water. The cheap rooms are in behind the main guest house, and the courtyard area is actually very nice to sit and read or write or whatever. Oh well, only $3US/person/night.

Courtney's not feeling well, she's sneezing, sniffling and has a headache.

We walked to the internet and used it for a while, then it went down, then back to the guest house so Courtney could pee, then back to the internet again, then we walked to Lane Xang Avenue, which was to be Vientiane's Champs Elysees, and up the Arch of Victory, called the Patouxai, which is supposed to be Vientiane's Arc de Triumphe. The Patouxai was supposedly built with concrete donated by the US gov't for the construction of Wattaw Airport, so the structure has been jokingly refferred to as the vertical runway.

We climbed to the top (1000kip), and it gives nice views of Vientiane. AFter that we walked to That Dam, some really old thing sticking out of the ground, then had some lunch (sandwiches), back to the guest house, and Court laid down.

While Court rested/slept, I walked to the elephant statue (small), then to an evening market, which was just hardware, construction stuff, automotive goods, absolutely nothing of interest to a falang.

About 6:30, Courtney was awake and up, so we walked to the night food market near us, then down the night food market along the Mekong river, and had a small, candle-lit supper at the bank of the Mekong. It's a somewhat bizarre and surreal experience, kind of weirdly romantic in a way, having a candle-lit supper, with plastic chairs, along the Mekong River, with food being prepared by street vendors, in Laos, a communist country, and one of the poorest countries of the world. Of course, there's a few cool sights at night in Vientiane, but neither Court or I had our cameras. Always happens!! I mean, after all, we were just going to get something to eat!!


Sunny and hot this morning, in the early afternoon, as we started our walk to the Patouxai, clouds started moving in, the a small thunderstorm, a little rain, and by 5:00 it was sunny again.

In the guest house, they have copies of the Bangkok Post and the Vientiane Times (both English) newspapers, so I did a quick read. The Vientiane times had a couple of interesting stories.

First, let me explain. There's a lot of garbage in Laos, people just throw it at the side of the roads, at spots, it looks like a garbage dump! So, one of the articles had a story on how the government is trying to encourage people to recycle and properly dispose of garbage, and help clean up Laos before it gets out of hand. (Seems to be it's already out of hand!)

The second story was quite fascinating. As I believe I commented on in a previous journal, perhaps last month, the Thai government had started a severe, new war on drugs in Thailand around the beginning of February. The Vientiane Times reprinted a story that appeared a short while earlier in the Bangkok post, the drug lords in Thailand and around the world have put a price tag on the Prime Minister of Thailand's head. The drug lords want him assassinated/killed/murdered, and all the drug kingpins are dumping money into a pool, which stands at more than $1 million US, for the person (or persons) that can get him. I'd be damn scared if I were the prime minister!!!

Saw Avril Lavigne's "I'm With You" today on the TV in the guest house, and heard Shania Twain's "Gonna Get You" emanating from somewhere today. Some good old Canadian artists over here in Laos.